INKSTAND

When I saw the trailer for the new Wolverine movie I thought it might not be as bad as one would fear. And it wasn’t really. As like the other X-Men movies I enjoyed trying to figure out which character the actors were portraying. I hate to admit I had to look a few of them up in this movie. It’s hard to tell how good the effects were because it was an unfinished copy of the movie and a ton of digital effects hadn’t been applied yet. Ropes were showing, the background in car shots looked worse than a soap opera and some entire shots were made unfurnished digital models. It was fun to watch.
I feel that if they wanted to use Jackman as Wolverine again, they should have kept a tighter continuity. I think I might of missed some things, like how and when Logan loses his memory, but there are things, mostly who he knows, that don’t add up. Why doesn’t Sabertooth remember Wolvie? Prof X shows up at the end and rescues a bunch of young mutants, including Cyclops and Emma Frost. Where did Emma go later on? Maybe it’s asking too much to go back in time to fix the future for these kinds of things. I think I saw Banshee and Quicksilver in there too. The whole story seemed a little muddled but it was fun overall.

A couple of years ago the Buffy television series continued on in comic book form, picking up a short while after the TV series ended as “Season Eight”. Just like the show, the comic follows a larger story arc with some stand-alone stories thrown in. This latest issue is one of the self-contained stories that borrows from the never-really-produced Buffy Animated Series. A lot of comics and cartoons in the nineties used the stylization of characters popularized by Bruce Timm’s designs of Batman in his animated series, and the Buffy cartoon followed suit in it’s character design. As far as I know, only a short promo was produced and the latest issue of the comic book uses the plot from that short story.

Buffy, tired from demon slaying, falls asleep and has a dream which is, in essence, the cartoon complete with direct quotes. Since the comic book takes place about ten years after the cartoon, Buffy fumbles around with not revealing too much about the future, like Willow’s lesbianism and Xander’s missing eye, and delights in changes that have not yet happened, like her mother’s death. She ends up fighting a dragon rather than getting to go to a party with her friends. Then she wakes up. The message is that while things seemed so simple when she was young, it’s only hindsight and her life was always complicated.

I enjoyed the use of the cartoon story. It never really had a chance but here it’s used to illustrate another aspect of life in the multifaceted Buffyverse. That cartoony art style gets tired really quickly when put on the printed page, working much better on the screen. The longer storyline in Season Eight has been rather weak so far with some of the shorter story arcs and standalone stories like this being more entertaining.
Here’s the animated promo:

I didn’t see the 2003 Ang Lee Hulk movie. Well, I did, but you know the old story. I was wasted. Or fell asleep. Or both. But it’s well know that this is not a sequel to that movie. That being said, I’m very glad that they decided to forgo the whole “origin story” with this movie. They show some of it, but just during the opening credits, catching us up, but sparing us from hearing yet another rendition of a well-known song.

I’m going to cut to the chase. What interests me most about this movie is it’s part in the build-up to the Avengers movie, planned for summer of 2011. I read that there are plans for a Iron Man sequel and a Thor movie in 2010 and a Captain America and Avengers movie in 2011.(most of this is confirmed on IMDB) The Iron Man movie that came out earlier this year seemed like a set up for something else, especially since the only real bad guy was a geezer with a similar weapon. Of course this is true since after the credits we see Sgt. Nick Fury of S.H.E.I.L.D. approach Tony Stark about the Avengers Initiative. Similarly, at the end of Incredible Hulk, Stark comes to General Ross about forming a team.
What I’m having a problem with is the continuity in which these films are taking place. We have regular continuity and “Ultimate Marvel” continuity. Nick Fury looking like Samuel L. Jackson (and thus played by SLJ) is from Ultimate, however the term “Intiative” is from regular continuty, a team that was formed after the recent Civil War. Also, Tony Stark revealing his identity to the public is from regular continuity, but Bruce Banner becoming the Hulk while trying to re-create a super soldier serum (this is foreshadowing to Captain America, BTW) is from Ultimate.
Ok, so I’ve strayed waaaay far from reviewing this movie (It was good, if you like action movies/comics, you’ll dig it). I guess what I want to know about is Thor. I LOVED the idea of Ultimate Thor. He was a beer-swilling hippie that everyone thought was crazy and delusional, and his brother Loki, god of mischief and trickery, convinced everyone he was just a loony human with a super-suit and got him locked up. Is that gonna be the Thor movie? And the Avengers…What other Avengers will be on the team? The incestuous brother/sister team of Qucksilver and Scarlet Witch from Ultimate? Vision, the robot from regular continuity? Which form will Henry Pym take? Giant Man, Ant Man, Yellow Jacket? Who’s the villain? Skrulls? Red Skull?

ok, i’ve gone on enough. All my questions will soon be answered. Now check out this awesome Hulk Theme song from the 60’s. That, along with the others, tells with frying-pan-over-the-head obviousness that Stan “The Man” Lee was still runnin the House of Ideas when those were made. Who else would ryme “gamma rays” with “unglamorous.”

It’s a blog, and a very good one at that. It makes me think of the days when you would go to someone’s Geocities page and they would have a shitload of images on there, taking forever to load. It was only a 14k modem for crying out loud! Jump to the future! Someone can put up galleries upon galleries of images that load in seconds! Super Underwear Perverts takes full advantage of this modern miracle to give us galleries upon galleries of sexy dude pics with an occasional superhero theme.

I don’t know if it’s the frequency of the posts, the number of images in them, the fun categories, or what but I highly enjoy seeing what’s new everyday. The labels include comic related things like “Mirror Master” and “Super Villain” as well as other things like “Spandex” and, my favorite, “Beer.” It’s an obeisance to alcohol’s ability to make straight dudes get it on with other dudes in some capacity or another.
As you scroll down the page of nerdy, weird but mostly sexy pictures, the sidebar has a ton of covers from comics, graphic novels and trade paperbacks as well as some pretty gay books. Now that I’ve enticed you and gotten you to red my review, you should go here and take a gander. If you like dudes ,then you’ll enjoy it. If you like comics you’ll enjoy it even more.

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I was pretty disappointed when I started reading this issue. The cover shows Jonah Hex shooting at robots. As I flipped through I saw that, not only does he not shoot at robots, he has a team-up with (are you ready?)…Thomas Edison. So I was kinda like “grumble..lame..grumble.” But as I got through the issue it got funnier.
You know the famous Towlie episode of South Park? My favorite part about that episode is the singular-mindedness of the children. All these insane things are happening around them and they only care about their Gamesphere. The thing we hear them say the most is: “We don’t care!” That’s kind of how Jonah Hex reacts to the various plot developments going on in this otherwise boring story.

This guy, Aubrey Booth, hires Hex to retrieve a robot that he says Edison’s men stole from him. As Booth is explaining the significance of progress and how electricity will change the world as we know it, Hex urges him to get to the freaking point! He just wants to know his job and get paid! He hunts Edison down to his hidden city in the Rockies and confers with him. The same thing happens as Edison paints visions of the future and Hex expresses how little he is interested in all of it.

At one point I’m getting really bored with Edison prattling on about progress, then there’s an explosion. Hex seems as relieved as I was, saying “Finally, a sound ah recognize.” Then some men attack the place, we find out Booth was working for Nikola Tesla, Hex shoots them up, the end.

Like I said, lame story, but there was humor as Jonah Hex never broke character.

When I went to pick up my comics from the comic store last week, the proprietor put the first issue of the new Metal Men series in my box, as he’s prone to doing with titles he thinks I might be interested in. I was interested, but declined. He then gave me a free copy of Scalped by DC’s Vertigo imprint. He said that I’d be back to buy the rest. I just finished reading that issue and I’ll say that he was right, in a way.

The story is of a Native American man with nunchucks named Dashiell Bad Horse who comes back to his hometown on the rez after being gone for years. He starts shit with every hood in town then gets hauled to see Boss Red Crow who he knows from way back. He’s the crooked head of everything and he offers Dash a job on his police force because he’s grown up into such a bad-ass. There is the subsequent revealing of people he knows from his past and by the end of the first issue, we see that Dash is not all he seems.

The plot has a Grand Theft Auto feel to it, with the street-level-thug protagonist who works his way up in organized crime. There are a lot of clichéd, Hollywood moments in just the first issue of this book. Some of the dialogue is poorly paced and feels akward. At times the art is cluttered and it’s difficult to tell what’s going on. There is a scene that covers several pages that takes place in Boss Red Crow’s office. On the second page we see a man lying on the ground that Red Crow has scalped. It’s not said who the man is or why he’s there.

Despite all these criticisms, Scalped did keep me interested enough o want to read more. Maybe it was because they set so much up in the story that if this an ongoing monthy series like I think it is, there’s a big possibility the story could stray far from it’s less-than-original starting point.

But am I going to go back and buy more? Nope. I know the momentum that Vertigo currently has, and I know that several issues of this title will be reprinted in a trade paperback. I’ll just wait for that to come around.

If you register for the San Diego Comicon online, you get the opportunity to purchase this clear Bugs Bunny action figure for only $15.00! I’m all for premiums and stuff. Back in ‘95 when Kenner released the new Star Wars figures, I sent my Frosted Mini Wheat proofs of purchase in to get my Han Solo in Stormtrooper costume figure, just like everyone else. The great thing about that was that they didn’t offer that figure at all in the stores. They don’t offer this Bugs Bunny, either, but they do offer the same one in non-invisible form. Why is it that I finally decide to make the trek down there and they offer some crap like that. I suppose I should be glad that it’s not a really cool figure of someone I really like so I don’t feel obligated to spend even more money on this shindig than I’m going to in the first place. But next time, Comicon, when I’m all rich and shit, you’d better have a Jonah Hex figure with real melting-face action!

The saddest thing about this movie is that it could have been good.
No, don’t laugh, I’m serious.
IT could have been good for my standards, anyway. No, I wasn’t expecting the in-depth character development that is making the $piderm@n movies all epic and shit, but all the elements were there and the special effects were at least up to industry standards. The thing that pissed me off the most was that, even though I don’t like Nicholas Cage that much, I hated when he was G#o$t R!der even more. I actually like the Johnny Blaze character, but whenever he changed he started with the one-liners. I HATE that! Also it would have been cool to see him move around naturally when his head was on fire, but it was like the stage direction was “Okay, remember…your head and hands are on fire!” As a result every single move is a pose that simply must be stricken.
The actress who plays Roxanne, the love interest, is simply terrible. Where did they find her? she can’t act her way out of…well, anything. She can’t act!
Oh, and everyone kept pointing at things.
The bad guys all wore the same goth-rave reject coats even though they were demons. They looked super retarded. One of them, Blackheart, could have been really cool if not played by the weird kid from American Beauty.
Oh, and anything there was wherever these guys went, including G#o$t R!der, got destroyed. Cars, buildings, light bulbs. All destroyed. I bet GR himself killed a shitload of people!
Any redeeming qualities this movie had were washed away by the script. Any Hollywood cliche you can think of was there. It was shit, plain and simple.
So, like I said I could have been good. But it wasn’t.

The worst part about reading a comic book that you are really engrossed in is the ads that pop up and interrupt the experience. It’s not as bad as TV since you can just flip the page but regardless the story is broken up as you are painfully pulled back into reality by someone trying to sell you something. A common trend among comic book advertisements as of late is the use of two facing pages to present the product. This enrages me.
The products in the ads tend to be of a similar theme. I first noticed it with two-pagers for automobiles. The idea that they were selling cars in comic books really frustrated me. I suppose it’s okay for advertisers to reach the comic market since many readers are now adults with a disposable income. The fact that they think they are so important that it takes two pages to sell me a goddam Ford commuter car is what angers me.
Another kind of product that likes to do this is video games. I epecially understand the cross merchandising with gamers and comic geeks, but do we really need two different two page ads for Final Fantasy V Advanced? I certainly don’t.

I saw the ad for this comic and was intrigued. I like Grant Morrison AND Frank Quitely and when I saw the trade for this three issue mini-series I thought I’d pick it up. After flipping through it I thought maybe I’d made a mistake because I can get soft hearted sometimes and don’t particularly want to see cute little animals get torn apart and blown to peices. Quitley’s artwork in general, especially, seems to exploit the cuteness of things for darker means. After reading it, though, I was very pleased with my decision to buy it ($12.99).
The story is of three rogue killing machines made from a dog, a cat, and a bunny, all pets that had been kidnapped by the government for experiments. The cover of each single issue is a lost poster for each pet which of course tug at the heart strings. The pets are to be decomissioned, but decide to escape and find home instead leaving a trail of corpses along the way. The visuals and subject matter can get pretty grusome at times, but it’s overall a touching story. I would also retract previous statements about the differences between trades and graphic novels and say that this is both.